Drabble #14: Innocence

Summary: He just hoped Aeris' innocence wouldn't be the thing that destroyed her.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything but the plot. Characters and places belong to SquareEnix


He was not sure what had made him think of it but he was soon thinking of Midgar. The city was corrupt and unclean and he had hated the little time he had spent there. Well, he hated almost all of it. He did not hate the fact that he had met Aeris in the run down city. She had stood out like an angel among the living, which sometimes, he thought she was. He had never met anyone who could be so forgiving for so many things. Sometimes, Cloud thought she was too innocent for her own good and one day that innocence would lead her into trouble. He knew of the kind of men in Midgar who stalked women like Aeris and stole their innocence away, leaving them broken and tainted. He never wanted Aeris to lose that innocence. She was the purest creature on the Planet, one of its own children and she did not deserve to be dragged into this messy business of chasing down Sephiroth.

However, Cloud was not one to complain and to be honest he quite liked her company. Her happy-go-lucky attitude was always welcome to the group after a long day of trailing across mountains and she did not seem like she was bothered with the strenuous exercise at all.

He was quite glad to have someone like Aeris by his side for this journey. He knew that at the end of it all, she would be there to comfort him, congratulate him and heal him up again. And he could not deny that a part of him would be happy to forget the mission and go off with her on his own. But Cloud knew better than that and though he could be selfish at times, he knew he could not do that. He also knew there was no way that Aeris would abandon the Planet either. It was part of her heritage to protect it, as it was her nature to be innocent. Cloud just hoped that her innocence wouldn't be what destroyed her in the end.